Archive for the ‘News’ Category

We want to make sure that our journals deliver rigorous and fair peer review and we wouldn’t be able to achieve that commitment without the amazing contribution of our reviewers.

In 2017, nearly 50,000 individual reviewers provided a review for one or more of our journals. Every one of them is contributing to the efforts of our community to advance excellence in the chemical sciences. Our community is truly a global one, with reviewers coming from over 100 different countries.

We want to celebrate some of the individuals who’ve made significant contributions to our journals by reviewing for us over the last 12 months, by publishing a list of Outstanding Reviewers for each of our journals. The lists will be published on each journal blog in March 2018 and each journal will also publish a special Editorial in the coming weeks. Each Outstanding Reviewer will also receive a certificate to give recognition for their significant contribution.

While it’s not possible to list everyone, we would like to say a big thank you to all of the reviewers that have supported our journals. We would also like to thank all our journal Editorial and Advisory Boards and the chemical community for their continued support as authors, reviewers and readers.

Congratulations to all the Outstanding Reviewers in 2017!

If you would like to become a reviewer for any of our journals, just contact the journal by email with details of your research interests and an up-to-date CV or résumé. You can find more details in our author and reviewer resource centre.

The Royal Society of Chemistry Twitter Poster Conference is an online event held entirely over Twitter to bring members of the scientific research community together to share their research, network and engage in scientific debate.

Following on from the success of the previous events, we are excited to announce that the 4th RSC Twitter Poster Conference will be held from Tuesday March 6th (9am GMT) to Wednesday March 7th (9 am GMT).

How do I take part?
During the event simply tweet an image (e.g. JPEG) which will be a digital poster summarising your research along with #RSCPoster, the most appropriate subject area hashtag and the title of your work.

The hashtags required are:

Analytical – #RSCPoster #RSCAnalytical

Chemical Biology – #RSCPoster #RSCChemBio

Chemistry Education – #RSCPoster #RSCEdu

Engineering – #RSCPoster #RSCEng

Environmental – #RSCPoster #RSCEnv

Inorganic – #RSCPoster #RSCInorg

Materials – #RSCPoster #RSCMat

Nanoscience – #RSCPoster #RSCNano

Organic – #RSCPoster #RSCOrg

Physical – #RSCPoster #RSCPhys

Image courtesy of Matthew Partridge

For instance, if you are presenting an analytical poster, Tweet “Poster Title” #RSCPoster #RSCAnalytical. Throughout the day you can then answer any questions posed to you by other people on Twitter and ask questions about other posters. Make sure you follow #RSCPoster as the conference progresses.

When is it?
Tweet your posters with #RSCPoster and the most relevant subject hashtag between 9am GMT March 6th and 9am GMT March 7th. To be considered for a prize, make sure you register at any time before the beginning of the event. Be sure to ask and answer lots of questions to ensure your work is well understood!

How do I register?
Pre-registration is not necessary unless you would like to be eligible for a prize. To be considered for one of the poster prizes you will need to verify who you are and where you do your research. We strongly recommend you do this before the event by emailing us and letting us know:
• Your name, address and contact details
• The title or topic of your poster
• Your twitter handle

Is my research area suitable?
The conference is open to anyone working in any area of science whose research topic falls within one of the subject hashtag categories. If you’re unsure if your poster is suitable for the conference, just get in touch and we can advise.

How are the winners selected?
The main aim of the event is to meet new scientists, share ideas and learn about the latest developments in different scientific areas. The scientific committee will select posters which stimulate wide interest and feature innovative, high quality, exciting research. Posters prizes will be awarded for content & accessibility, design and researcher interaction with the conference. There will also be an audience award for the most tweeted poster. For the #RSCEdu Chemistry Education category, two prizes will be awarded: one for the best submission in the area of primary/secondary/further education and one for the best submission in the area of higher education. For all other categories, a first prize and a runner up prize will be up for grabs!

What can I win?
In the Chemistry Education category, there will be a £100 prize available for the best submission in the area of primary/secondary/further education and a £100 prize for the best submission in the area of higher education. In each of the other 9 categories, we will be awarding a first prize of £100 and the second prize will be an RSC book voucher worth £50. We will also have a special prize for the poster that receives the most retweets. Make sure you register before the event to be in with the chance of winning!

Who is organising the event and how do I find them?
At different points throughout the day members of each scientific committee for each subject area will be logging in to Twitter and searching #RSCPoster to ask questions about some of the posters. Make sure you check back in at different times to see if you have any new questions and also make sure you ask questions about other posters. You can also follow the RSC journal twitter accounts relevant to your research category for updates.

Fraser Stoddart, Northwestern UniversityZoë Ayres, University of WarwickPerdita Barran, University of ManchesterJames Batteas, Texas A&M UniversityGonçalo Bernardes, University of CambridgeMargaret Brimble, University of AucklandHolly Butler, University of StrathclydeSimon Lewis, Curtin UniversityJean-François Masson, University of MontrealWarren Piers, University of CalgaryMichael Seery, University of EdinburghNick Stone, University of ExeterMarcel Swart, University of GironaRenée Webster, Monash UniversityDoug MacFarlane, Monash UniversityDamien Arrigan, Curtin UniversityNeil Keddie, University of St AndrewsYonatan Calahorra, University of CambridgeMalika Jeffries-El, Boston University

We look forward to seeing your research in March!Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to check the copyright and permissions needed for figures or any other parts of my poster which have already been published?
Yes. Copyright owners have the exclusive right to copy their work and to issue copies of their work to the public, and it is an infringement for anyone else to do so without the copyright owner’s permission. If you are reproducing material contained in a Royal Society of Chemistry publication (journal articles, book or book chapters) you may do so providing that you fully acknowledge the original Royal Society of Chemistry publication and include a link back to it. If you wish to include material that has been published by another publisher, you will need to check how the publisher/copyright owner of the third party material wishes to receive permission requests. Information on this can be found on our Permission Requests page at http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/copyright/permission-requests.asp under “Use of third party material in our publications”.

If I include unpublished work in my poster, will I still be able to publish this in a peer-reviewed journal afterwards?
Subject to the usual conditions outlined in the License to Publish, being a part of the Twitter conference will not prevent you using some of the information included in your poster as part of an article in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal. Please note this policy varies by publisher and if you intend to submit your research for publication elsewhere after the event, you should check the individual policy for that journal and publisher.

What size should my poster be?
You can choose any dimensions for your poster, the important thing is that the text and figures are clear for people to read and understand. Using Microsoft PowerPoint, we found a text size of between 12-16 were clear to read when saving an A4 slide as a JPEG and uploading to Twitter. Using an A0 template, the text needed to be between 50 and 60 to be legible. You can use any software you like to create your poster, as long as the image you upload is clear for others to read. We recommend testing your poster on Twitter before the conference to make sure you are happy with your image.

To celebrate Open Access Week (23-27 October), we want to know why you think open access publishing is important to chemistry. To enter upload your thoughts to Twitter before 12 noon (UK time) on Friday 27 October for the chance to win an article processing charge (APC) voucher for RSC Advances.

How to enter

Simply tweet why you think that open access is important to chemistry and include the #RSCcomp hashtag.

You can tell us why in any way you choose, you could record a short video, draw or paint, write a song or poem or just write a short paragraph.

To be in with the chance of winning please upload your entry between Monday 23 October 2017 and 12 noon (UK time) on Friday 27 October 2017.

If you’re submitting a written entry, please write it on a PowerPoint slide or similar and then convert it to a JPEG before uploading it to Twitter. Please make sure the writing is legible in the image.

Selecting a winner

We’ll randomly select one winner, from all the entrants, on Friday 27 October 2017. We will contact them directly before announcing the result on our Twitter feed.

During Open Access Week you can follow the competition using the hashtag #RSCcomp.

More about RSC Advances

We deliberately push the boundaries with RSC Advances, always looking for new and unique ways to make the scientific developments we publish accessible to the widest possible audience.

Community-led, with an international team of associate editors, a dedicated reviewer panel and features such as article-based publishing, RSC Advances has been gold open access since 2017. This move has given researchers free access to a broader scope of high quality work and offered new, affordable open access publishing options to authors around the world.

We have partnered with Publons – a third-party reviewer recognition service – for a twelve-month trial on ten of our journals, so you can effortlessly keep a verified record of every review you complete. We really value your reviewing and editorial contributions and want to ensure you get more recognition for them.

How it works
When you submit a review to a participating journal you will be asked if you want to opt in to Publons, you can then instantly start building your verified peer review and editorial record to showcase the full extent of your contributions and influence in your field. Publons tracks your reviews without compromising reviewer anonymity, by default, only the year of the review and the journal title will be shown on reviewer profiles for our journals.

Benefits
Publons gives you access to a range of tools and data to benchmark your reviewing and editorial activity, and provides you with up-to-date verified evidence of your peer review contributions, which you can include on your CV and in funding applications. You also have the option to link your Publons record to your ORCID account to show your publication and peer review activity together. Publons is free for researchers.

Here, we collaborate again, to explain how the arrangement came about, how it works, and why we think it contributes to the transparency of science.

How does the collaboration work?

In short, the peer review and final editorial decisions of all chemistry papers submitted to Royal Society Open Science are managed by a team of chemistry editors and in-house staff at the Royal Society of Chemistry. Published papers appear with both journal and Royal Society of Chemistry branding in our collection of chemistry papers.

How is the collaboration unique?

This is the first collaboration between two societies publishing in one journal. Royal Society Open Science receives direct submissions, as well as transferred manuscripts from several Royal Society of Chemistry journals (RSC Advances, Chemical Science, Chemical Communications). It’s an exciting venture helping both societies build strategic links, while ensuring they retain a larger fraction of the high-quality content submitted to their journals. Royal Society Open Science gains from the expertise and insight of the editors, while the Royal Society of Chemistry is able to raise its already considerable profile in more multidisciplinary fields of research.

How did the collaboration come about?

One of the goals of the Royal Society of Chemistry was to facilitate networks to support community needs. In discussion with the Royal Society, both parties agreed collaboration would be a great way to achieve these aims. By handling the chemistry section, the Royal Society of Chemistry was able to offer its authors the option to publish open access in compliance with their funding requirements; the option of objective peer review with no restrictions on scope, article length or impact; the possibility of open peer review and open data publication, as well as more widespread visibility in an interdisciplinary scientific journal – all unique features the Royal Society of Chemistry was unable to offer its authors at the time.

How does the collaboration contribute to transparency in peer review?

Uniquely, the collaboration provides both societies an opportunity to see how another publisher works, and to openly discuss respective experiences regarding peer review and journals, which is not a given in the publishing landscape. This is of great benefit to both societies and can only improve services for authors and readers.

In particular, the collaboration provides authors with the chance to observe and compare the benefits (and challenges) of closed versus open peer review. While it is not mandated, Royal Society Open Science encourages open peer review for all authors and referees, including those submitting chemistry papers. Over the last year, almost three quarter of authors and well over half of reviewers have taken advantage of this option.

When both parties agree to open peer review, we publish the decision letters and reviewer correspondence alongside the final article. We hope eventually to be able to assign reports a DOI to allow them to be effectively cited, and to help researchers build their portfolio of outputs. The advantages of open peer review include improving the transparency of the published paper’s journey from submission to acceptance; it provides a mechanism for referees to self-identify and to gain recognition for their hard work (as does the journal’s integration with Publons); and helps
reviewers to compare and write better reports.

Finally, Royal Society Open Science has introduced Registered Reports, which will make research more transparent and help to fine-tune study design, as well as minimising some forms of publication bias. The Royal Society of Chemistry has been instrumental in raising awareness of these article types more widely among the chemistry community.

How has the collaboration been received by the chemistry community?

Both societies have been pleasantly surprised by the support and feedback the collaboration has received. Authors involved have been almost universally positive. The societies have benefited in a number of ways. Royal Society Open Science struggled to attract high-quality and diverse chemistry submissions before the collaboration. Now, a fifth of all manuscripts are submitted to the chemistry section. The transfer of scientifically sound research papers from the Royal Society of Chemistry to Royal Society Open Science is important in in giving all authors a platform to publish their work, especially if it helps people avoid repeating negative results, which previously have mostly ended up hidden away in lab books.

“As the subject editor with responsibility for chemistry submissions to Royal Society Open Science, I have found the experience of working with both the RS and the RSC to be very rewarding. As already noted, some Royal Society journals have in the past found it difficult to attract high-quality chemistry papers, but through this collaboration and the ability of the RSC to attract work of the highest standard, we have seen a significant reversal of that situation. Hopefully, some of this success will spill over into other Royal Society journals.”

What challenges does the collaboration face and how have you overcome them?

The chemistry community’s initial lack of familiarity with Royal Society Open Science was a challenge. However this has been addressed by ramping up joint marketing efforts; with the Royal Society of Chemistry providing details about the collaboration to chemistry researchers, and expanding the number of journals offering transfers, ensuring much greater visibility for Royal Society Open Science. As can be seen in the corresponding graph, a quarter of submissions received by the journal are now from the chemical sciences.

A future challenge will be the introduction of article processing charges by the journal. Authors will be supported during the transition to charging and APC by discounts and waivers for resource-limited authors, ad hoc waivers for invited pieces and the Royal Society of Chemistry’s own experience of the transition of RSC Advances; they will be helpful in supporting the process and ensuring it runs as smoothly as possible.

What’s next for the collaboration?

More of the same! As well as increasing the number of published papers, the editors are exploring opportunities to commission high-quality reviews and special collections, to raise the profile of researchers in emerging fields. We will also be launching an Advisory Board comprising internationally renowned experts, who will assist the editors in providing ad hoc advice. The first 18 months of the collaboration have laid great foundations for further success – watch this space!

We want to make sure that our journals deliver rigorous and fair peer review and we wouldn’t be able to achieve that commitment without the amazing contribution of our reviewers.

In 2016, nearly 50,000 individual reviewers provided a review for one or more of our journals. Every one of them is contributing to the efforts of our community to advance excellence in the chemical sciences. Our community is truly a global one, with reviewers coming from over 100 different countries.

We want to celebrate some of the individuals who’ve made significant contributions to our journals by reviewing for us over the last 12 months, by publishing a list of Outstanding Reviewers for each of our journals. The lists will be published on each journal blog on Friday 24 February 2017 and each journal will also publish a special Editorial in the coming weeks. Each Outstanding Reviewer will also receive a certificate to give recognition for their significant contribution.

While it’s not possible to list everyone, we would like to say a big thank you to all of the reviewers that have supported our journals. We would also like to thank all our journal Editorial and Advisory Boards and the chemical community for their continued support as authors, reviewers and readers.

Congratulations to all the Outstanding Reviewers in 2016!

If you would like to become a reviewer for any of our journals, just contact the journal by email with details of your research interests and an up-to-date CV or résumé. You can find more details in our author and reviewer resource centre.

We are delighted to announce the RSC Twitter Poster Conference 2017 (#RSCPoster) will be happening on Monday March 20th (9am GMT) to Tuesday March 21st (9 am GMT).

The Royal Society of Chemistry Twitter Poster Conference is an online event held entirely over Twitter to bring members of the scientific research community together to share their research, network and engage in scientific debate.

Building upon the success of the previous two Analytical Science Twitter Poster Conferences, we have broadened the scope of the poster conference to include all areas of the chemical sciences.

How do I take part?
During the event simply tweet an image (e.g. JPEG) which will be a digital poster summarising your research along with #RSCPoster, the most appropriate subject area hashtag and the title of your work.

The hashtags required are:

Analytical – #RSCPoster #RSCAnal

Chemical Biology – #RSCPoster #RSCChemBio

Education – #RSCPoster #RSCEdu

Environmental – #RSCPoster #RSCEnv

Inorganic – #RSCPoster #RSCInorg

Materials – #RSCPoster #RSCMat

Nanoscience – #RSCPoster #RSCNano

Organic – #RSCPoster #RSCOrg

Physical – #RSCPoster #RSCPhys

For instance, if you are presenting an analytical poster you would tweet “Poster Title” #RSCPoster #RSCAnal. Throughout the day you can then answer any questions posed to you by other people on Twitter and ask questions about other posters. Make sure you follow #RSCPoster throughout the day as the conference progresses.

You also need to upload your poster and details to the conference Tumblr site, under the appropriate subject category, to ensure you are in contention for a prize.Access the Tumblr site here.

When is it?
Posters tweeted with #RSCPoster with the most relevant subject hashtag and also uploaded to Tumblr between 9am GMT March 20th and 9am GMT March 21st will be eligible to win prizes. Make sure you ask and answer lots of questions to ensure your work is well understood!

Is my research area suitable?
The conference is open to anyone working in any area of science whose research topic falls within one of the subject hashtag categories. If you’re unsure if your poster is suitable for the conference, just get in touch and we can advise.

What can I win?
The main aim of the event is to meet new scientists, share ideas and learn about the latest developments in different scientific areas. The scientific committee will select posters which stimulate wide interest and feature innovative, high quality, exciting research. Posters prizes will be awarded for content & accessibility, design and researcher interaction with the conference. There will also be an audience award for the most tweeted poster.

Who is organising the event and how do I find them?
At different points throughout the day members of each scientific committee for each subject area will be logging in to Twitter and searching #RSCPoster to ask questions about some of the posters. Make sure you check back in at different times to see if you have any new questions and also make sure you ask questions about other posters. Members of the organising and scientific committee and their Twitter names are listed below and make sure you follow the RSC journal twitter accounts relevant to your research for updates.

How do I register?
Pre-registration is not necessary; however we will need to verify who you are and where you do your research to be eligible for the prizes. We strongly recommend you do this before the event by emailing us and letting us know:
• Your name, address and contact details
• The title or topic of your poster
• Your twitter ID

Do I need to check the copyright and permissions needed for figures or any other parts of my poster which have already been published?
Yes. Copyright owners have the exclusive right to copy their work and to issue copies of their work to the public, and it is an infringement for anyone else to do so without the copyright owner’s permission. If you are reproducing material contained in a Royal Society of Chemistry publication (journal articles, book or book chapters) you may do so providing that you fully acknowledge the original Royal Society of Chemistry publication and include a link back to it. If you wish to include material that has been published by another publisher, you will need to check how the publisher/copyright owner of the third party material wishes to receive permission requests. Information on this can be found on our Permission Requests page at http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/copyright/permission-requests.asp under “Use of third party material in our publications”.

If I include unpublished work in my poster, will I still be able to publish this in a peer-reviewed journal afterwards?
Subject to the usual conditions outlined in the License to Publish, being a part of the Twitter conference will not prevent you using some of the information included in your poster as part of an article in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal. Please note this policy varies by publisher and if you intend to submit your research for publication elsewhere after the event, you should check the individual policy for that journal and publisher.

What size should my poster be?
You can choose any dimensions for your poster, the important thing is that the text and figures are clear for people to read and understand. Using Microsoft PowerPoint, we found a text size of between 12-16 were clear to read when saving an A4 slide as a JPEG and uploading to Twitter. Using an A0 template, the text needed to be between 50 and 60 to be legible. You can use any software you like to create your poster, as long as the image you upload is clear for others to read. We recommend testing your poster on Twitter before the conference to make sure you are happy with your image.

My image is too big for Twitter – what can I do?
We strongly recommend uploading the highest resolution image possible, but it won’t always be so simple. If your image is too high resolution, simply upload a lesser quality image of your poster to Twitter, then upload the high resolution image to the Tumblr page. You might also like to redirect any interest shown in your work towards Tumblr.

As part of our participation in Peer Review Week, we ran a prize draw for our reviewers. Anyone who provided a review for one of our journals between 19 September 2016 and 16 October 2016 was automatically entered for a chance to win a fantastic prize!

The winners have now been selected at random, with the first three winning an Apple iPad and then next ten winning a six-month subscription to Chemistry World.

The lucky reviewers that will receive an iPad are….

Name

Institution

Country

Le Yu

Nanyang Technological University

Singapore

Bin Hu

Wuhan University

China

Claudia Kummerloewe

Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences

Germany

The reviewers that have won a six-month subscription to Chemistry World are….

When you give your time as a reviewer for a Royal Society of Chemistry journal, you are part of the world’s leading chemistry community, supporting us in advancing excellence in the chemical sciences. As a little added bonus to celebrate Peer Review Week, for the next four weeks you will also be in with a chance of winning a fantastic prize!

The first three lucky winners will receive an Apple iPad and 10 runners-up will collect a free 6 month digital subscription to Chemistry World the Royal Society of Chemistry’s flagship magazine featuring the latest chemistry news, research updates, features, opinions, podcasts and more. This offer also includes a 25% discount on a 12 month digital subscription after the end of the free access period.

Entry couldn’t be simpler – a reviewer who submits a review for any of our journals between 19 September 2016 and 16 October 2016 will be automatically eligible for a chance to win. Winners will be selected at random and announced in the first week of November 2016.*

If you would like to become a reviewer for any of our journals, just contact the journal by email with details of your research interests and an up-to-date CV or résumé. You can find more details in our author and reviewer resource centre.

*Reasonable efforts will be made to contact the winner(s). If the winner(s) cannot be contacted, we reserve the right to offer the prize to the next eligible entrant drawn at random. We reserve the right to reject entries from entrants not entering into the spirit of the competition.

This week, we are excited to be joining in the celebrations for Peer Review Week – a global event recognising the essential role that peer review plays in maintaining scientific quality.

At the Royal Society of Chemistry, we are passionate about ensuring that our journals deliver rigorous and fair peer review. We wouldn’t be able to achieve that commitment without the amazing contribution of our reviewers.

So far this year, nearly 40,000 individual reviewers have provided a review for one or more of our journals. Between them they have submitted over 120,000 reviews! Every one of them is contributing to the efforts of our community to advance excellence in the chemical sciences.

Our community is truly a global one, with reviewers coming from over 100 different countries.

This Peer Review Week, we want to celebrate just some of the individuals who’ve made significant contributions to our journals by reviewing for us this year. We’ll be publishing a list of the top 10 reviewers for each of our journals throughout this week, starting today with our materials and nanoscience journals.

While it’s not possible to list all of them here, we would like to thank each and every reviewer for their support. We’d also like to say an extra-special thank you to the members of our journals’ editorial and advisory boards who often serve as senior reviewers and adjudicators.

Each day, a different set of journals will publish their Top 10 reviewers for 2016, as selected by the editor for their significant contribution to the journal

Make sure you come back everyday this week to see the top reviewers for our journals.

If you would like to become a reviewer for any of our journals, just contact the journal by email with details of your research interests and an up-to-date CV or résumé. You can find more details in our author and reviewer resource centre.